Long Island ska band The Homecoming Queens opened for the English Beat in suitably ranking style. Two guitars, bass and drums, and FOUR horns, they were a lively lot playing for friends in the audience, trading inside jokes and emotional shoutouts.They have two lead singers, one of whom, Rich Seibert swirls his horn like a baton, and the other, Jon Graber, looks like a refugee from a hardcore band, and five vocalists capable of singing back up and any given moment. it's a busy stage and it is a stage with the flavor of pals doing it for the purest of pleasures: a joy for the sound in their ears.
Sometimes the Homecoming Queens sound like a rock band who can get the fans to skank, and sometimes they sound like a ska band who are into art-rock. But they don't let the endeavor get in the way of their sense of fun, the sort that has em call one EP Names for Songs That Don't Make Sense.. And this sense of playfulness is all over the stage, the two lead singers lead the on the wrong side of 25 band in a breezy, freewheeling set. They crack each other and the audience up but they don't let the size of the venue put them off their dinner and the air of professionalism is very, very strong.
i don't know the ba Homecoming Wueen's material though the fans near the stage do, calling requests, skanking in the middle of the floor and cheering em on lustily! The songs are at the best when the horns take over and the horns take over all the time but the songs aren't memorable on the first listen and after awhile they merge into a mass of singalongs where the hook is missing.
They end the set with the closest they come to a hit "Summer Song" which made me feel instantly nostalgic for a time when I was blasting this song on my car radio and driving round Long Island worrying about my future and my first year in college… and girls… except I never did that and any way it is the first time I've heard the song.They've only recorded one album, Songs You Know, in 2008, broke up in 2009 and have, apparently reformed, info is hard to get. The take on the Ska front is they are no Street Manifesto but they are the real thing
Maybe this reunion explains the feel of a homecoming Saturday night. They were very into it, very cheerful, even taking a pix of the audience at the end as if they weren't sure they would be playing to this many people again. I dunno about that, while I wasn't in love with the Homecoming Queens, all I needed was some familiarity with their songs and I could well have been.